ch 2 meeting with lizard people

Part I: "The Little One"

The smell was what led him there.

Not blood this time—but warmth. Smoke. Spiced fish and dried reedgrass. It tugged at something buried deep in his brain—not a memory exactly, but a shape. A comfort he couldn't name. He followed it in silence, his massive form pressed against the wet stone wall of Riften's edge, navigating a thin alley that opened into the marshy backwaters where the city's refuse met the natural swamplands of the Rift.

Beyond a low fence of driftwood and knotted rope sat a huddle of wooden huts, propped up on stilts over dark water. Rain tapped gently on the rooftops, the storm having passed, leaving only gray skies and fog like breath hanging over the marsh.

They had built their own little world out here—tucked between the city's contempt and the swamp's indifference.

Argonians.

He saw them now—six or seven moving in and out of the huts. Slender, long-tailed, upright reptiles in worn leathers and patchworked cloth. Their colors varied—green, blue, rust-red—but they all walked with the same quiet grace.

Croc crouched low behind a pile of stacked crates near a broken cart. His breathing slowed. His eyes narrowed.

They looked like him.

Not entirely. They were thinner, smaller—much smaller. Their scales smoother. None taller than six feet. And their eyes lacked the shine, the coldness. Their movements were softer, lighter.

But still—they looked like kin.

He didn't dare move.

Then he heard a splash.

A tiny one.

He turned his head.

There, on the walkway of cracked planks just a few feet from his hiding spot, stood a little Argonian girl. Couldn't have been more than six or seven by her size. Scales a soft bronze, tail twitching behind her in excitement. She wore a tattered yellow scarf and carried something in both hands.

She was looking straight at him.

Croc froze.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

The girl cocked her head. Blinked. Then took a step forward.

Croc tensed. His claws slid silently into the wood.

But she didn't flinch.

She smiled.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

Her voice was small, sweet—without fear. She held out what she carried: a woven pouch made of swamp grass, tied with cord. It smelled like warm smoked eel and dried berries.

Croc stared at it. Then at her.

The girl hesitated. "You can have it. I made it."

He didn't move.

The wind rustled the grass behind them.

Then slowly, cautiously, he reached out one clawed hand—huge compared to hers—and took the pouch.

Their fingers didn't touch, but it was close. She smiled wider.

"My name's Keesa," she said proudly. "You look strong. Are you a protector?"

Croc opened his mouth. No words came out.

He looked down at the pouch.

Someone had made something for him. Just for him.

Not in fear. Not in tribute. Not in terror.

Just because.

He looked back up at her, this impossibly brave little thing in a yellow scarf.

"…I don't know what I am," he rumbled.

Keesa giggled. "You're big."

And she turned and ran back to the huts, calling out: "Mama! There's a giant lizard in the reeds! But he's nice!"

Croc blinked.

She wasn't lying. She wasn't running in fear. She was telling someone about him like a story.

The marsh wind blew again. Behind him, a frog croaked. Somewhere deeper in Riften, a bell tolled noon.

And Waylon Jones—the killer, the monster, the thing whispered about in terrified tones—looked down at a pouch of smoked eel and berries in his claws and didn't know what to feel.

Part II: "No Fear in Their Eyes"

They came slowly.

Not with weapons. Not with shouts. Not like the guards or the thieves or the scientists before them.

Three of them emerged from the huts—two males, one female—walking across the wooden planks with careful steps. Their postures weren't aggressive, but they weren't loose either. Balanced. Centered. Ready for anything—but hoping for nothing.

Croc remained still. He was too large to hide now. Too out of place. He could hear Keesa chattering excitedly from inside one of the homes, her voice bubbling with joy: "He's huge! He took the pouch! He didn't even growl!"

The first to approach was the female.

Tall, with faded blue scales and a wrap of dark red cloth over her shoulders. Her face was long and lined, the frills at her jaw dotted with old piercings. She had a scar across her left eye, not fresh but not ancient either. Her gaze met his without blinking.

She said nothing for a long time.

Then: "You're not Saxhleel."

Croc tilted his head slightly. "What?"

"It means Argonian," she said. Her voice was quiet. Firm. "You're not one of us. Not truly."

Croc straightened. He didn't move forward. He didn't growl. But the tension was there—coiled, quiet.

"I didn't say I was," he said.

The two males behind her glanced at each other.

The female watched him another long moment. Then looked down at the pouch in his claws.

"She gave you that?"

He nodded once.

Her shoulders eased. Just barely. She stepped forward again, until she stood just ten feet from him. Still too far for a strike, but closer than anyone had willingly gotten since he arrived in Skyrim.

"She's not afraid of you."

"I noticed."

"Neither am I."

That gave him pause.

The second male—older, green-scaled, a long tail and pale throat—added, "You're not of the Hist. But… maybe you were meant to be."

Croc frowned. "The what?"

The female gestured to the reed mats laid on a low platform near one of the huts. "Sit. If you don't kill us, you can eat. If you do, well… there are worse ways to go."

That surprised a breath out of him.

He stepped forward.

The wood groaned. The two males tensed for a split-second—reflex. But no one moved to stop him. No one reached for a blade. No one ran.

Croc sat.

His knees rose above his chest. The mat bent under his weight. He looked absurd, massive, wild, covered in dried blood and rainwater.

But no one flinched.

The female passed him a bowl—wooden, rough-carved, filled with stewed roots and strips of fish.

Croc looked down at it. Then up at her.

"I kill a man in the street, and your kind feeds me?"

"You're not the first Saxhleel to be hunted here," she said.

"But I'm not Saxhleel."

She shrugged. "Maybe. But you're still made of scale and hunger. We know what that feels like."

He looked around them—the warped docks, the hanging lanterns, the hut made of driftwood and bark and patched leather. This wasn't wealth. This was survival.

"Got a name?" he asked.

"Bryska-Tei," she replied.

He nodded. "Croc."

The old green-scaled one coughed a laugh. "Fitting."

And so, Waylon Jones, killer and freak, ate stew among strangers who didn't fear him—and didn't ask him to be less than what he was.

Not a monster. Not a hero.

Just something with hunger, looking for a place to sit.

Part III: "The Scarred Tongue"

The fire popped once, spitting sap onto the stones.

The Argonians had gathered in a rough circle under the open awning between two huts. Rain fell in soft veils beyond the edge of the canopy, hissing on the surface of the marsh. The scent of reed-smoke, grilled fish, and wet grass mingled in the air.

Croc sat still.

The bowl beside him was empty. The stew had been bitter and rich and earthy. His stomach, which hadn't known calm in days, rested heavy and satisfied.

He said nothing as the others spoke around him—quiet exchanges in their tongue, Jel, the swamp-born language that clicked and slid like water over stone. He didn't know the words. Not exactly. But he felt them.

It wasn't like English, or whatever passed for Common in this world. It moved differently. Carried tone as much as meaning. He could feel it in the throat, in the back of the jaw, like the sound wanted to crawl out of him even before he understood it.

Bryska-Tei was speaking now. Not to him. To the others.

"Veesh-ka nel. Ththei jaku Sul-Tei nuhst. Xal oxithu."

He caught… the blood does not… this one is strange… not rooted in the tree…

He didn't know how. But the meanings floated through him like fog curling around a tree trunk. He closed his eyes. Listened harder.

One of the elders responded. A rust-brown Argonian with a torn frill and heavy throat:

"If he speaks, we'll know. No Saxhleel can fake Jel. It lives in the tongue, not the mind."

Croc opened his eyes.

Something inside him ached.

Not pain. Not hunger.

Something older.

He shifted, his massive form creaking against the mat. The others quieted. Even Keesa, who had been tracing shapes in the mud with her claw, looked up.

Croc cleared his throat. Gravel moved in his chest.

Then he spoke:

"Ka… shal ka. Nush… oxee. Meesei… thas vaas."

The words came clumsy, rough. Mispronounced.

But they were Jel.

Every Argonian in the circle froze.

Even the elder's jaw hung open a little.

Croc felt the silence crash over him like a second wave of rain. He looked around, brow low, eyes narrow.

"What'd I say?" he asked flatly.

Bryska-Tei leaned forward, her expression unreadable.

"You said… 'Not from here. Still, I hear. I walk the path.'"

Croc blinked.

"That ain't what I meant to say."

"No," the elder rasped. "It's what the Hist meant to say through you."

One of the younger Argonians whispered, voice trembling with awe: "He's changing."

Bryska-Tei looked at Croc differently now. Not as an outsider. Not as a freak. But as something… becoming.

She gave a small nod.

"The tree doesn't always root in soil," she said. "Sometimes it floats. Sometimes it finds water."

Croc had no idea what that meant.

But no one here looked afraid of him anymore.

And for the first time, he felt something shift in his chest that wasn't rage or hunger.

Part IV: "Something to Lose"

The days weren't measured by clocks here.

They were marked by the smoke curling from the fish racks in the morning, the way the frogs started singing at dusk, the flicker of lanterns as the marsh swallowed the light.

Waylon didn't count them. He didn't try.

He stayed in a half-collapsed shed at the edge of the Argonian quarter, near the reeds. A shack no one used. They left it empty for him, and no one asked why.

Every morning, Keesa brought him food—whatever she could sneak or barter or wrap in cloth. She asked questions he never answered, talked about things he didn't understand, and laughed at her own jokes. Then she'd run off, scarf flapping behind her.

Sometimes the elders came.

They didn't pry. They didn't preach. They just sat near the fire and spoke in Jel, slow and gentle. Letting the words seep into the space between them like mist through a cracked window. Croc didn't speak back again—not yet—but he listened.

And every night, he walked the edge of the water. Alone. Quiet. Watching the lights in Riften's windows across the canal.

He could feel them, even from here.

Fear. Anger. The word monster on every lip.

But here?

Here he was just big. Quiet. Different. Not wrong.

He was still sleeping with one eye open. Still coiled like a spring. Still sharpening his claws on the stone out of habit.

But the tension was… less.

He didn't realize what that meant until one night, when a cry echoed across the water—a guard kicking a drunk in the street, a scream of pain and shame.

And Croc flinched.

Not because he was startled.

Because he was afraid it would come here.

Because for the first time in years,

he had something he didn't want the world to ruin.

Keesa. Bryska. The marsh wind and the stewed eel.

It wasn't much. But it was his.

And that was the most dangerous thing of all.